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If I wasn’t constantly being told be the TV, radio, newspaper, and magazines that we are in a financial downturn, would I know that from my every day life experiences over the last year?

My answer is no.

My life has gone on pretty much unchanged from what it was prior to this “down turn.” No, that’s not right. Truthfully, it is much better. My business has remained very good. As a matter of fact, the last couple of years were the best in my career. There have been a lot of eager buyers — eager to buy a home, and eager to take advantage of the $8000 tax credit.

In some ways, business is much easier now.

Sellers are much more willing to deal and try harder to put a sale together and keep it together. Also, builders are paying nice bonuses for selling their homes — homes that I probably would have sold anyways to the buyers that I have. Everyone seems much more appreciative of my efforts — co-op agents, builders, mortgage lenders, title companies, etc.

It’s Friday evening and there’s a dusting of snow on the ground in Bethesda. The Washington, DC area is supposed to get up to 20 inches over the next 24 to 36 hours, which would be a record snowfall. I’ve already canceled the 4 showings in Virginia for tomorrow. Most were new houses and — even if we could safely get there – no one was willing to promise that driveways and walkways would be shoveled or plowed.

I’m hoping that the roads will be clear enough so that I can get out for the two scheduled showings that I have on Sunday. The tenacity of many buyers here — despite the elements — reminds me how and why the holiday season can be a fruitful time for home sales.

Motivated Anyone?….

Home buyers who are asking to see homes in the last couple weeks of December with 2 feet of snow on the ground, aren’t going out for “fun” — unless they’re skiing from house to house in Vail or Beaver Creek

In DC and much of the country? Very few are going to be taking the roads for information gathering. No, the majority of holiday buyers (at least in my experience) have done their research, and are “pushing on” because they need to buy a home.

And for those who don’t have to brave the elements this time of year (Sarasota, Florida, Austin, Texas…), there are still other commitments of the season. And those who need/want to sacrifice some of this time are equally committed to the process.

The Home Equity Conversion Mortgage is a product created by Congress in 2008 to provide some liquidity to the struggling home market. The amount you can borrow depends on age, current interest rates, and the appraised value of your home or FHA’s mortgage limits,whichever is less. Generally, the more valuable your home is, the older you are and the lower the interest, the more you can borrow.

No payments are necessary as long as the house is your principal residence.

No need to repay the loan as long as you or one of the borrowers continues to live in the house

You can never owe more than the value of your home at the time you or your heirs sell the home.

When you sell your home, you or your estate will repay the cash you received from the reverse mortgage plus interest and fees.

The rest is yours.

The Rules Just Changed

More seniors are turning to reverse mortgages to supplement their retirement savings, which have been decimated by market losses. Continue reading this post

In the month of October 2008 there were about 750 real estate deals transacted in Brooklyn, New York. This is down about 50% from a year ago. Half of the neighborhoods in Brooklyn have also lost about 10% of their home values during the same timeframe.

I am not stating these facts to be negative, quite the contrary; I view this as a positive!

Remember, in adversity lies opportunity.

You see, what had actually taken place was a correction in the market. From 2000 to 2005 real estate prices in Brooklyn tripled and quadrupled or more in some places. It basically was becoming impossible for your average buyer to afford a home. Buyer’s pretty much had no choice but to boycott the market.

What possible reason could you have to buy a home this year? Let’s analyze the facts.

1) Interest rates down to 5.5% – the takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have the rates tumbling. Why on earth would anyone want to pay a low interest rate like this when we could wait for double digit mortgage rates. I mean at 11% interest we would get twice the write off on our taxes wouldn’t we?

2) $7500 tax credit for first time home buyers. You heard me right that is a tax credit – not a deduction. Of course if we wait on 11% mortgage rates we will have a pretty big deduction anyway so we may not want or need this $7500 tax CREDIT!

3) Seller incentives are at all time highs. Sellers are almost certainly going to pay all your closing costs. They may also be willing to throw in a refrigerator, privacy fence, and who knows what else. But who needs all that stuff! I would really rather pay my own closing costs and other expenses to get into a home as this makes me more independent. Again, I can write that off on my taxes – right?

4) Homes are at bargain prices compared to a couple of years ago! We don’t want to buy when prices are down though – do we? It is always better to buy high and sell low isn’t it? If we bought now we might make a big profit in a few years – what would we do with all that money?

Any rational person can see that buying a home in 2008 would be a huge mistake. Waiting a couple of years to buy a home would obviously be the wise decision.

Well, I’ve decided to do something about the bad news – I’m ignoring it. I don’t pay any attention to the real estate stories any more. I’m tired of hearing of all of the trouble in the real estate market. Instead, I’m maintaining a positive attitude and going about business as usual – assuming that the real estate market is great – and guess what? BUSINESS IS GREAT!

There are lots of people who want to buy homes and I’ve found out that most of them don’t listen to the news in the first place. They have no idea what the real estate market is like. All that they know is that they want to buy a house – and I want to help them.

Why don’t you join me. Put down the newspaper, think about all of the successes that you’ve had in the past, and with that positive attitude, go out there and create some more success stories. Continue reading this post

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